Not sure you can be open-minded and “fueled with the rage of a thousand suns” at the same time. Here is an open-minded student viewing the GAP display.

Interesting comments on our website during GAP at Tennessee Tech University (TTU).

Visitor, a 22-yr-old female, said that she was fueled with “the rage of a thousand suns about how closed-minded people can be.”  I wonder how open your mind must be in order to contain that much rage?

When I encounter closed-minded people, they are almost always on the political left.  Why is that?

Anyway, she went on to say that abortion is “a great option for people not ready for birth.”  Au contraire!  When I wasn’t ready for birth, the only safe option for me was to stay right where I was.

Moms: getting children ready for birth for thousands of years.

GAP commands the attention of all. Only by reaching the unwilling audience can we ever hope to reform culture. When the culture embraces our message, our work is done.

by Lincoln Brandenburg

Pro-life students at Western Kentucky University (WKU) were trepid about using victim images, so we brought the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) under the university’s vendor policy.

Rather than participate in GAP, they set up a free-speech board about 100 feet away, with the question “How can we help pregnant women on campus?”  According to their president, they wanted to gauge the responses of students to GAP before committing to using victim images.

We acknowledged that many students would not be thrilled about it!  But we also guaranteed that GAP would be more effective than anything else they have ever seen.

But they didn’t have to just take our word for it.  They saw it with their own eyes and heard it with their own ears.  Near the end of a fruitful first day of GAP, one of the SFL members approached.  He said, “We’ve had a lot of people tell us they changed their mind on abortion because they saw your pictures!”

During our conversation, I mentioned that the most outspoken students tend to be those who are upset by abortion victim images.  He assured me that, “Oh, the students who’ve talked to us were upset, but they realized that abortion is wrong.”  They had been upset because they realized that abortion, by it’s very nature, is upsetting.

Social reformers are never popular until after they achieve their goal.  Martin Luther King got thrown in jail.  But reformers don’t wait for the culture to approve; they act against the evils that society tolerates and celebrates.

According to Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, “Perhaps the most important principle … for the pro-life movement to adopt at this point in time, is that pro-life activity which relies on the voluntary consent of the audience is insufficient. … To put it rather bluntly, effective social reform requires forcing the message on an unwilling audience.  It means confronting the culture with what it does not want to hear.”  (Source: The Unwilling Audience)

Lincoln Brandenburg is a CBR project director and a regular FAB contributor.

At Fayetteville State U, CBR Project Director Jackie Hawkins explains how abortion is the leading cause of death (and voter suppression) in the Black community.

We need the Black community.  Without them, we cannot win.  And who better to advocate against pervasive injustice?

That is why we were thrilled when the Life Education And Resource Center (LEARN) brought our Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) to Fayetteville State University (FSU) in North Carolina, one of many historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) who need to see that all Black lives matter.  It was our first visit to this school.

See CBR’s new All Black Lives Matter signs and press release here.

“I saw so many being enlightened, some weeping, and others willfully joining our opening and closing prayers. The dialogue was transforming.”  (LEARN National Director Johnny Hunter)

One group of students said they even watched part of Maafa 21 in class, because of our presence on campus.

Media Coverage:

• “All Black Life Matters” project visits HSBC Fayetteville State College students
• LifeTalk:  Johnny Hunter interviewed on Life Dynamics
• Life Dynamics: Students react to All Black Lives Matter abortion display

“CBR has always been burdened by the fact that the abortion rate in the African American community remains tragically high. Black women account for 36% of all abortions despite constituting only 11% of the female population.”  (CBR Executive Director Gregg Cunningham)

For more details, read this letter from Gregg Cunningham explaining the All Black Lives Matter Initiative.

Kudos to CBR Maryland Operations Director Samantha Linnemann for making this event possible by bringing equipment and personnel to Fayetteville and managing the site.

Justin Brown explains to a group of students how abortion advocates dehumanize their intended victims. It is amazing how much influence one student can have.

This was different, but in a good way.  At Tennessee Tech University (TTU), official policy allows individual students (not just student groups) to host events on campus.  So when national pro-life award-winner and TTU student Justin Brown contacted us about bringing GAP, we were eager to go.

It is amazing how much influence one student can have, by God’s grace and with your support.  Thank you for making our work possible!

As it turns out, every public university student has the same right that Justin exercised at TTU; their universities just don’t know it … yet.  The rights of free speech and equal access to university grounds are individual rights, not group rights.  They cannot be denied to an individual student simply because he hasn’t identified others willing to join him in that speech.  TTU has figured this out, and they deserve credit for that.

There were some complications, however, because several TTU administrators didn’t understand their own policies.  To make matters worse, they were not very cooperative when we tried to speak with them.  It’s a good thing we got those issues resolved, however, because the last thing TTU wanted was for CBR to start flying airplane tow banners bearing abortion photos over their campus on a regular basis!  They can ask Notre Dame what that’s like.  TTU hosts many activities for high school students throughout the summer (Boys State, cheerleading camps, etc.), so the last thing they want to see is abortion photos flying overhead.  Fortunately, they read their own policy manual in time, so we can save the nasty version of ourselves for somebody else.

Justin did an outstanding job of hosting GAP at TTU, and we look forward to working with him for many years to come.  We set up in front of the Library, a very good location in the middle of campus.

Media Coverage:

• Anti-abortion display creates conversation by library

The GAP display and Reproductive Choice Campaign (RCC) truth trucks are a powerful combination.

Abortion photos create more opportunity for dialogue than any other pro-life tactic.

It was our very first trip to Western Kentucky University (WKU) with the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).  We were not invited by a student group, but were able to reserve space as a vendor on Centennial Mall, the most heavily trafficked location on campus.

Although the WKU Students for Life (SFL) did not sponsor GAP, they were willing to host our Pro-Life Training Academy (PLTA), and we are grateful for that.  SFL members learned how to articulate and defend the pro-life position, even in a hostile environment.

GAP proven effective yet again!  Even though the WKU SFL didn’t sponsor or participate in GAP, they did set up an information booth at a different location nearby.  They told us that many students stopped by their booth and said that our GAP display had changed their minds.  Some even signed up to join SFL!  That is why we say that GAP

• neutralizes the opposition,
• converts the neutral,
• activates the converted, and
• energizes the active!

Our Truth Truck carries the pro-life message throughout the campus!

CBR’s Kendra Wright explaining the pictures to a group of journalism students.

It was by far the best campus Christian organization we have ever encountered.  They are Ratio Christi and they don’t have time for the “pizza for Jesus” tomfoolery that wastes so much time in youth ministry today.  Young Christians are very weak because nobody is preparing them to take a stand.  But Ratio Christi is different; their unofficial motto seems to be, “We’re trying to pick a fight!”  And they are good at it!

The fight we helped them pick was over child sacrifice at the U of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW).  Ratio Christi, along with College Republicans (CRs), invited us to bring our Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) and Pro Life Training Academy (PLTA) to UNCW for the very first time.  By God’s grace and your support, we made quite a splash.

Our display location was along the Chancellor’s Walk, which is the primary walkway to get from anywhere at UNCW to just about anywhere else.

Campus newspaper coverage of GAP:

• The Ever-Growing Controversy: Pro-choice or Pro-life? (published about a month before GAP)
• Genocide Awareness Project comes to UNCW
• Controversial Comparison of Genocide and Abortion

Local news coverage of GAP:

• Two UNCW student organizations bring controversial display to campus
• Controversial display has people talking at UNCW

Lightning was an issue both days on campus.  For our GAP displays, CBR has adopted the NCAA protocols for outdoor athletic events (although our staff and volunteers are normally much less exposed than the typical baseball center fielder).  We vacate the site whenever lightning is detected within a 6-mile radius (less than 30 seconds between lightning flash and sound of thunder), and stay in a sheltered location for 30 minutes beyond the last such strike.

Kendra Wright explains how genocide victims are denied rights of personhood.

Although East Carolina University (ECU) has an undergraduate enrollment of >21,000, this was our first-ever GAP at ECU.  By God’s grace and with your support, it won’t be our last.

ECU has no pro-life student group—we are taking steps to fix that problem—but their policies allow outside groups to reserve space on campus, so we did!  Although our location was a good one (outside the Student Center), ECU is a huge campus and there is no one collection point for all of the pedestrian traffic.  That made our Truth Truck all the more important, allowing us to reach many thousands of students who may not have seen GAP in person.

The campus newspaper coverage was excellent, and included a photo of our best GAP signs on page 1, above the fold!  Items in the campus paper:

• Pro-life organization holds protests on campus
• Officials talk free speech on campus

Here is a copy of the first news article, as seen, with abortion photos clearly visible on page 1 above the fold!  See original here.

The second article was factually incorrect about one point.  We did not pay a service fee to use the space.  First, ECU did not set up the display nor clean up afterward, as implied by the article.  Second, ECU officials asked us to move our event from the designated public forum (near the Cupola) to the location outside the Student Center.  Since the designated public forum space is available free of charge, we incurred no additional fee by agreeing to ECU’s request.  Finally, we would never agree to pay any security fee (to cover the cost of policing violent pro-abortion protesters), because that is a violation of the Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement decision of the US Supreme Court.

Patti Shanley of Raleigh, North Carolina traveled with us to Michigan for a week of GAP.

This was our first trip to Grand Valley State University (GVSU).  The GVSU Students for Life did an awesome job of hosting both GAP and our Pro-Life Training Academy (PLTA).

The Quote of the Week came from one of the students who actually came out to protest against GAP:

You saved my future children.  I would have aborted them.  Now I won’t because I know what it looks like.

Media coverage:

• GVSU Lanthorn: Anti-abortion demonstration ignites debate
• Editorial: Civil Conversation
• Letter to the Editor
• Lanthorn response to letter to the editor
• WZZM-TV: Pro-life students host graphic display on GVSU campus

They get snow in Michigan, but that won’t stop us!

On the first day of GAP at Oakland University (OU), Christina Lo Piccolo wrote on her Facebook page:

The cost of my student group hosting the Genocide Awareness Project:  $5,000

The look on my professor’s face when he asked if I saw the disgusting display outside and I told him I helped organize it:  PRICELESS!

What a thrill to work with young heroes like Christina!  The thrill is even sweeter because our trip was paid for by student fee money, just like last year!  Students for Life collaborated with a dozen other campus groups to pay our expenses out of their respective student fee allocations.

But the best part of the week came at the very end, when Christina again posted on Facebook:

This past week was life-changing to say the least.  I was able to participate in 3 days of the Genocide Awareness Project to educate students about abortion.  Hearts were changed and students were motivated to take action.  I can hardly wait to graduate and continue this work as a full-time career.  “Y’all” are like family to me, and working beside you feels like home.

Did she say “Y’all”?  How bout dat.  We get to do GAP and learn a Yankee how to tawk!  It don’t get no better-n-at.

Seriously, we’ll never end abortion if we don’t get folks like Christina to join the battle full-time.  The other side has made killing babies a full-time profession, but we’ve made saving them a part-time hobby.  We can’t do anything without volunteers and financial supporters like you, but we absolutely need more like Christina to do this full-time.  Such a victory is well worth the trip to Michigan!

Thank you for making this possible with your gifts and prayers.

CBR’s Kendra Wright reinforces the abortion photos with logical arguments.

For the first time ever, CBR hit Georgia Southern University (GSU) hard with the reality of abortion.  Faculty, police, press, and students alike couldn’t deny what abortion does to a human being.  Nearly a dozen students said they will organize a pro-life group to continue the work.  Pray that they will!

One administrator said her own daughter had been born at 24 weeks; she said her baby, “looked like the picture on your poster.”  She was startled by the contrasting photo of a dead 24-week-old baby, killed by a late-term abortionist.

One of the most encouraging responses: “Where’s the sign-up sheet?  I have to do something! This is horrible.”

Campus police were a constant presence.  One officer debated with a couple Liberty students and did his best to defend choice.  It was an unusual but welcome bonus.  The officers, doing their job and standing near the display, allowed us to do ours and influence them with the pictures and our words.

We even had media before GAP:

• Police: Graphic images of abortion to be seen on Statesboro streets (story on truth trucks)
• Anti-abortion group: Graphic images to be displayed on Georgia Southern campus

A reporter from the Statesboro Herald interviewed several CBR members, students, and GSU staff.  (If you can get the Statesboro Herald website to work,) You can read his article here:

• Graphic images and the First Amendment

One student said, “Disgusting!  How can people do that?”  Another commented, “I know the facts and while this is hard to see, I am glad you are here.  People need to know what the word [abortion] means.”

One of the most encouraging responses: “Where’s the sign-up sheet?  I have to do something!  This is horrible.”  Indeed.

Emily McGowan of Liberty University explains how genocide perpetrators always dehumanize their victims.

For the first time in history, CBR exposed the horror at Columbus State University (CSU) in Georgia.  We were hosted by the CSU Advocates for Life (AFL), the student group we started earlier this year.

We were joined by five students from Liberty University in Virginia who spent their spring break winning hearts, changing minds, and saving lives.  We pray for the day these students expose abortion on their own campus, without interference from the Liberty University staff.

The trip was funded by the Chattahoochee Valley United for Life (CVUL), a chapter of Georgia Right to Life (GRTL).  Over the years, we have worked with many GRTL chapters to bring GAP to Georgia.  This trip was a huge answer to prayer.

CBR and CVUL hosed our Pro-Life Training Academy (PLTA) to prepare members and students alike to articulate and defend the pro-life movement, even in a hostile environment.

Check out the local media coverage:

• WBRC TV: Controversial images on CSU campus add fire to the abortion debate

A middle-aged woman told us, “I am so glad you are here. Folks don’t understand what they are doing. I have 50 year-old friends who are still hurting from abortion. It goes so much deeper than people realize.”  Indeed.

Ruby Nicdao

by Ruby Nicdao

We overlook flippant comments, because it is critical to engage people with opposing or dismissive views and help them reason.

As one couple walked hand-in-hand past our display, I offered a brochure and asked what they thought.  The guy answered, “I’m an art student, so I’m indifferent to this.”  His girlfriend smiled at the retort.

Ignoring his dismissive attitude, I asked, “Okay, so what do you think of our artistic layout?  Do you agree with our comparisons?”

He responded, “Yes, I would agree with the comparison.”  He pointed to the dismembered baby’s hands and feet wrapped around the top of a quarter (an obvious national symbol) and remarked, “That looks like America stands behind abortion.”  Even though he was saying it in jest, there was truth in what he was saying.

I pressed further, “Okay, I know you are being facetious, but do you think the the pre-born is a human life?”  He said he did, but that he is not a female and this was not his choice to make.

I pushed further, “If this were a toddler and her mother tried to kill this toddler, would you stand up for this child?”  He said he would.  [This is a variant of the trot out the toddler argument.]

I continued, “Okay.  So if your girlfriend became pregnant and she wanted an abortion—and you just admitted that the pre-born is a human life—would you stand up and speak up for your child?”

He then said, “Yes, yes.  I guess I would.”

This one man’s shift of attitude won’t change the world tomorrow, but he did begin to think of abortion as a serious human injustice.  He saw the need to stand up for one child about to be killed, especially if it were his own.

Ruby Nicdao is a CBR Project Director in Virginia and is a frequent FAB contributor.

Virginia Project Director Maggie Egger explains how abortion decapitates and dismembers little human beings.

by Maggie Egger

Abortion photos don’t just make converts; they educate and energize people who are already pro-life.

At Radford University, a young man approached me and asked, “Are you the people I’m supposed to interview?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.  “We’ve had a good number of people interview us for their classes.”

“OK, great!  I must be in the right place!”  As he pulled out a notepad, he said, “I’m Catholic.  So I’m, ya know, pro-life.”

I told him I was excited to hear that, but from the way he said it, I could tell he was not strongly committed.  It seemed like he was raised in a pro-life house, but he didn’t necessarily buy all of it.

“Jacob” began to ask questions about the display, e.g., what was our purpose in being there, what kind of reactions did we get, what did we think of the protesters, etc.  He appeared to believe that the preborn are human beings, but he didn’t know much about abortion in general.  He knew the answer to “What is the preborn?” but he didn’t yet fully understand the answer to “What is abortion and what does it do?”

Then he asked me why we compared abortion to genocide.  Before talking about personhood, dehumanization, and all of that, I simply said,

“A lot of people say that our comparing abortion to genocide is ludicrous and offensive.  And you know what?  They’re absolutely right, if the preborn are not human beings, in the same way that you and I are human beings.  If they are not human beings, then (a) abortion doesn’t kill them, (b) abortion is no different from getting a tooth pulled, and (c) any comparison with genocide is absolutely insane.  But, as you and I both know (because science tells us), that every human life begins at fertilization.  So, abortion kills 1.2 million human beings every year in the U.S. alone.  I don’t know any word for that, other than genocide.”

“Wait, what?  How many abortions a year?”

“1.2 million.”

His eyes grew wide in disbelief.  He shook his head.  “Wow!  Yeah, you’re right.  That’s what it is … a genocide!”

We walked around the rest of the display so he could see all the different pictures, and he asked a few more questions.  When we finished he said, “Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all this to me. I’ve learned a lot.”

Yes, he had learned a lot.  And that knowledge left him more committed to the pro-life position.  That’s why you send us.  There are many more like Jacob, so please send us more places, more often.  And ask your Christian friends to do the same.

Maggie Egger is a CBR Project Director in Virginia and was the Project Manager for CBR’s recent GAP visit to the Commonwealth.

Rio Hondo College welcomes GAP to campus.  (Click on photo to enlarge; see yellow sign in background.)

When we expose abortion, two things happen.  People who have aborted feel the pain of knowing, but babies are saved because of knowing.

“I might be pregnant now and I’ve been thinking about having an abortion.”

CBR was at Rio Hondo College in November when a 32-year-old student approached our Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).  She had aborted her child some years ago and now lives with regret.  She is married but unable to conceive.  She told volunteer “Carol” that she thinks she is being punished by God for having aborted her only child.  Carol sought to encourage her by telling her how God works in our lives and by bringing up the possibility of adoption.

“Rhonda,” the wife/girlfriend of a campus security guard, asked Carol about people’s response to GAP.  As they talked, Carol shared her own testimony of having aborted, the deep regret, and how it has affected her life.   Then Rhonda told her own situation to Carol, “I might be pregnant now and I’ve been thinking about having an abortion.”

Carol told her about the student who aborted and now cannot have children.  Rhonda had never thought of that possible consequence.  She was worried about the economics of raising a child, citing a $400,000 figure she had read.  Carol helped her understand that those numbers do not reflect most people’s needs; Carol had been raised without her parents having much money, but there was always love in the home.  At the end of the conversation Rhonda said, “I don’t think I’ll have that abortion now.”

Three women came up to CBR’s Lois Cunningham and one asked what Lois would tell a woman who was contemplating abortion.  Lois told her we would (1) show the abortion pictures to educate her, (2) be sure the woman has adequate support in her life, including supportive family and friends, if at all possible, and (3) take her to a pregnancy help center/clinic for services.  The lead woman than told Lois that she has a friend who is pregnant and planning to abort, but she was now going to show her friend our photo brochure and tell her about pregnancy help clinics.

These are only two of the babies who may have been saved as a result of CBR’s presence on campus.  If you will help us, we are committed to showing students the truth about abortion so we can spare them and their children from the brutality of abortion.

Debbie Picarello, who is post-abortive herself, reaches out to pro-choice protesters. She can offer hope and healing in ways the rest of us never could.

With tears in her eyes, she said, “I interned all summer with the political arm of Planned Parenthood (PP).  People called me a baby-killer all summer.”

She had been well-indoctrinated by PP—clean, safe, regulated, counseling, psychological help offered, ultrasounds given, etc.

“We save lives,” she claimed.

She was speaking with CBR’s Jane Bullington, standing in front of the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) at James Madison University (JMU).

Jane kept reminding her, “Abortion kills a human being.”  She hated that.

“It is not a human.  What if it is not wanted?”  (As if being “wanted” makes one  human.)

“You can’t ask the mom to work at McDonald’s so she can have a kid and go to college; that is too demeaning.”  (As if hard work is “demeaning.”)

[This reminded us of the Middle Tennessee State University student who said his mother was unmarried and waiting tables when she got pregnant with him.  But she got serious about her life and went back to school.  Eventually, she would become head nurse at a hospital and make close to $100,000 a year.  It was a strong counter-example to the poverty myth.  He went on to say that if she had aborted him, she would still be waiting tables.  Anyway, back to JMU.]

Her most astounding statement was this: “Women have evolved and our bodies are not designed to carry and deliver these babies anymore. They are too big for our small pelvic bones.”

Lemme get this straight.  PP’s buddies on the Left say it took millions of years for the human body to “evolve.”  Now, in only two generations, the female reproductive system has further “evolved” into something dysfunctional?  Why?  Because of evolutionary pressures?  From what?  Radical feminism?  Has PP become that ridiculous?

Believing lies has consequences.

She began to cry uncontrollably and kept saying abortion does not kill babies.  Jane now knew she was post-abortive.  She was seeing, for the first time, the monstrous lies she had told herself and others.  She was horrified.

It was horrifying to us, also.  We were too late to save her oldest child(ren), but we pray the truth will save her younger ones.

We also pray she will repent of telling abortion industry lies and tell the truth from now on, to others as well as to herself.  We pray God will use this painful experience to save many babies and moms.